Trump Stands by Huckabee After Unannounced Pollard Meeting

The Trump administration was left in the dark. “The White House was not aware of that meeting,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told RealClearPolitics. It was reportedly left off the public schedule of the ambassador. And yet, the administration still condoned the actions of the U.S. envoy to Israel.  

“The president stands by our ambassador, Mike Huckabee,” Leavitt added, “and all that he’s doing for the United States and Israel.”

The case sent shockwaves through both Washington and Tel Aviv at the time of the conviction. The rare spy who offered his services to an ally, Pollard pled guilty, confessing to selling thousands of pages of secret documents to the Israelis for cash, vacations to Europe, and promised future payments to be wired to a Swiss bank account. A federal judge dismissed pleas for mercy even after Pollard’s cooperation led to the indictment of an Israeli air force officer.

The episode came at the height of the Cold War when the CIA was on the lookout for Soviet, not Israeli, spies. The press had dubbed 1985 the “Year of the Spy” as President Ronald Reagan vowed to combat espionage wherever it might fester. “We’ve added resources, people, and top-level attention to this task,” Reagan said during a November radio address that year. “We will not hesitate to root out and prosecute the spies of any nation.”

The FBI nabbed Pollard two years later outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., during a failed attempt to gain asylum.

Pollard was released from prison in 2015 during the Obama administration. After his parole restrictions expired in December of 2020, at the tail end of the first Trump administration, the former spy emigrated to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted him on the tarmac, telling Pollard “You’re home.”

The private jet that flew him there was reportedly owned by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a Republican megadonor who was a benefactor of both Netanyahu and Trump.

Pollard has no regrets for his actions. He told the New York Times, who first broke the news of his meeting with Huckabee, that it was necessary because the U.S. had cut Israel out of intelligence sharing. During that interview, the former spy, who was granted Israeli citizenship while incarcerated, reportedly called Trump a “madman who has literally sold us down the drain for Saudi gold.”

Earlier this week, Trump designated Saudi Arabia as “a major non-NATO ally,” a formal designation that deepens cooperation but does not include a security guarantee. He has also greenlit the sale of F-35 jets to the kingdom, whose biggest trade partner is China.

The model of that stealth aircraft is said to be less sophisticated than the ones the U.S. previously sold to Israel. The president assured Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during an Oval Office meeting, however, that the Saudi version of the jets will be “top of the line.”

The betrayal became a thorn in the side of U.S.-Israeli relations, but over time, the wound scarred over, and numerous prominent Americans including former CIA Director James Woolsey and former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dennis DeConcini, pressed for clemency.

“I find their unanimous support for clemency compelling,” former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a 2011 letter to then-President Obama. “I believe justice would be served by commuting the remainder of Pollard’s sentence of life imprisonment.”

Pollard is expected to run for elected office in Israel next year. Of his former country, he said in a recent interview with the Jerusalem Post that it was his experience of antisemitism that drove him to betray the United States.

“The right side of my brain understood that [I was crossing a red line], but I also remembered my Uncle Alfred’s words that I had to sacrifice my life for Israel,” Pollard explained. “The left side of my brain told me: ‘Trust Rafi, he promised to rescue you.’”

American spooks generally remain focused on declared enemies, but even allies keep close tabs on one another. It is awkward, though seldomly acknowledged in private. Trump, however, is the exception to that rule. During a 2017 press conference with then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he referenced how the National Security Agency had monitored that world leader’s cell phone activity.

“As far as wiretapping,” Trump said, likening her experience with the surveillance his campaign was put under, “at least we have something in common perhaps.” The ally was not amused.